Giuseppe Piamontini

Provenance:
Marquesses Gerini.

This sculpture of Milo of Croton by Giuseppe Piamontini formed part of a contract between his son, Giovanni Battista Piamontini and the aristocratic Gerini family who were renowned and sophisticated patrons of the arts in 18th century Florence. The Marchese Gerini wanted this sculpture as well as one of a faun by Giovanni Battista, to occupy a prominent position in two niches in the ‘primo ricetto’ – the first reception hall – of the newly enlarged Gerini palace. This palace was one of the most lavishly decorated patrician residences in 18th century Florence and housed a unique painting gallery that grew from the 17th century onwards to become one of the most important collections in Florence.

This is Giuseppe’s last known marble statue and one of his last works and depicts Milo of Croton who was an athlete of legendary strength. Ancient sources such as Pausanias and Valerius Maximus record his high-protein diet and his intense training programme which consisted, among other things, in carrying a four-year old bull on his shoulders before slaughtering and eating the animal in a single day. The ancient authors add that he started lifting the animal as a boy when it was a calf and repeated the exercise daily as both he and his ‘weight’ grew day by day. He came to a tragic end one day when, wishing to display his unparalleled strength, he attempted to remove the wedges holding the two sides of a split tree trunk apart. The wedges fell out and he was trapped, falling prey to a pack of wolves, or alternatively of lions in some of the rare sculptural depictions of the story.